NOVEL NEXT Chapter 44
Chapter 45: Aker Castle
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“All right, senior!” Chu Weiwei suppressed the excitement in her heart and got to work again.
She started to check the other boxes that were lying around on the ground.
When she opened them, she found equipment, medicine, and various other items.
She even found a recipe for a potion.
Cross-Dressing Potion:
Quality: Silver high-grade.
Origin: Any Nightmare World with a King/Knight in it.
Formula: 30 grams of Disguising Lotion, 7 grams of All-Purpose Water. Let it ferment for 10 days in a Nightmare fermenter.
Application: Apply on the skin.
Explanation: If I lifted a rabbit by its ears, the male would twitch its front legs, while a female would keep its eyes closed most of the time. But if I let them run side by side, who would know which is male and which is female? Give up the fight! Human, I know that you’ve wanted this for a long time. Wear that pink dress and put on that purple hair clip. Get your lipstick and nail polish on. Believe me, the entire world will be mesmerized by you!
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You can sell this to the Realm of Nightmare and get 1,500 Nightmare Points!
When Chu Weiwei saw this potion recipe, she was stunned for a few moments.
Then she received a prompt from the Mark of Nightmare: “Team Leader MonkFahai has given you the Cross-Dressing Potion recipe.”
“You have received the recipe for Cross-Dressing Potion.”
Chu Weiwei looked up in surprise.
Then she spotted her senior giving her a look filled with encouragement.
This made her face blush a little bit, so she quickly changed the subject and asked, “Senior, what do I do with the equipment and other items that I’ve picked up?”
“Anything that’s less than silver-grade can be sold off,” said the monk without thinking too much about it.
Chu Weiwei was stunned for a moment after hearing this, but then she nodded.
She followed her senior’s instructions and sold off all the equipment and miscellaneous items that were less than silver-grade.
After that, she received a few prompts from the Realm of Nightmare.
You have sold a Black Iron low-grade piece of equipment: slave’s riding boots worth 50 Nightmare Points. But because you are not the owner of this item, you will only get 5 Nightmare Points as a tip.
You have sold a Black Iron high-grade piece of equipment: Slave’s long sword, worth 150 Nightmare Points. But because you are not the owner of this item, you will only get 14 Nightmare Points as a tip.
…
After a lot of prompts, Chu Weiwei realized that all the equipment and miscellaneous items that she had sold thanks to her senior had added up to nearly 600 points in just tips.
This was really…
She sold off all the equipment and miscellaneous items that were below silver-grade.
Chu Weiwei’s Mark of Nightmare then was only left with a few pieces of silver-grade equipment and Magical Items.
After her senior had checked through the descriptions of all these things, he allowed her to take two of the pieces of equipment for herself.
Chu Weiwei felt terribly honored. She didn’t know how to thank him.
She could only clasp her hands and bow. “Thank you, senior, for your great kindness! I will repay you in the days to come.”
…
Ling PingAn looked at this female player who was so obsessed with the game and scratched his head. He was thinking, “It’s only two pieces of equipment, and you can’t exchange them for money either…”
“This girl is a little too over the top!”
To Ling PingAn, it was true that this Legend of Nightmare had been really well-designed and developed, and it used the latest technology of the Federal Empire…
But, at the end of the day, it was just a game.
So none of these things were worth any money to him now.
Of course, these things might be worth money in the future.
But that was a discussion for a later time.
So he didn’t think very much about it now.
But, in order to show off, he cleared his throat and replied, “It’s just two material items. You’re too obsessed with these superficial things.”
“Also, we have crossed each other’s paths because of fate.”
“Perhaps these two items were fated to be yours because of something that happened in a different lifetime.”
Ling PingAn then pretended to be high and mighty as he shouted a Buddhist chant, “Amitabha!”
The female player put her palms together and very reverently bowed to him. “Senior, you are of high morals and upright. Your junior will learn from you.”
This fed Ling PingAn’s ego quite a bit.
When it came to playing games, feeling good was the most important thing.
So he started walking forward once again.
“Good donor! There are many more demons in this place that are waiting for me to send them into the nether world.”
That’s right. He had to quickly find the next place with demons so that he could earn more Nightmare Points by killing them.
He needed about another 10,000 points to be able to purchase that Gold Skill Scroll and obtain a new skill.
To be honest, when Ling PingAn had first discovered the presence of this female player, he didn’t want to be bothered by her at all.
But later, he realized he had a problem.
If he just went around killing and harvesting everything in the game with no impunity and had no audience to watch him do it, then it was missing that feel-good factor.
It was just like how the main character in a novel always needed a few sidekicks to look more impressive.
And, in reality, even a comedic duo had one member to play a supporting role.
For these reasons, he’d decided to invite this female player to join his team.
First, he wanted someone to witness his amazing abilities and incomparable skills in the game.
Second, it was really too troublesome to pick up all the trash on the ground all the time.
He needed an assistant of sorts too.
…
Ling PingAn brought the female player called PrettyWeiWei along as he traveled on.
He followed a deserted, quiet asphalt road that headed eastward.
After a while, he saw a light in the distance again.
When he listened carefully, he could hear the faint sound of waves breaking.
This made Ling PingAn immediately become excited.
Of course, he didn’t forget to follow the manner of speech he’d had to adopt in this Legend of Nightmare.
“Amitabha!” He looked at the light source in the distance. “The evil aura of that place is terrible [which meant that there were many points to be collected there], so I will be like an angry gorilla and become like a Vidyārāja, a Wisdom King, banishing these things and attaining nirvana as soon as possible!”
He hastened his steps and started moving ahead quickly.
But that was really tough on Chu Weiwei behind him.
In just a few minutes, she was panting and perspiring profusely.
Thankfully, the source of the light wasn’t too far away. In just a few moments, Ling PingAn was able to see what the whole place looked like.
It was an ancient castle that had been built on a cliff facing the sea.
Looking at its architecture, it had clearly been built in the style of bastions from 200 years ago.
The light from several candles shone brightly from the windows of the castle.
There seemed to be some figures walking around inside.
He could also hear some melodious, cheery music being played from inside.
In front of Ling PingAn, another plaque appeared.
He walked nearer to take a look at it, only to find that it had been written in a language that belonged to some country outside the Federal Empire.
He scratched his head because he couldn’t understand these words at all.
But when Chu Weiwei finally caught up with him and spotted the stone plaque, she exclaimed in shock, “Senior, this is Aker Castle!”
“Aker Castle?” Ling PingAn was a little stunned. “You mean Aker Castle from 200 years ago?”
This caught him by surprise.
Most citizens of the Federal Empire didn’t really bother themselves too much about anything that happened outside of the Federal Empire…
Especially those who had been born after the Federal Empire was formed.
Many of them didn’t even know how many countries there were in the world. They had no idea about what sort of place all these messy non-Federation countries were.
But there were always exceptions.
This Aker Castle was one of them.
That was because a bloody battle had happened here in the past.
The battle had happened toward the end of the Federal Empire’s war to free the southern Shang Dynasty.
The two parties fighting this battle had both been enemies of the Federal Empire at that time. The party fighting against the Aker Castle was termed by the history textbooks in the Federation as the Prince of Qin, who was also known as the Pioneer of Freedom. He was the Commander of the Kingdom of France and later became the head of the Holy Roman Empire. Of course, he had a place in the Federal Empire’s history textbooks. But it was only a 20- or 30-word paragraph…
This battle at Aker Castle changed the course of the Land of Qin’s history.
The one who’d lost the war was forced to retreat. After they returned to their country, there was a great political change, and the old, corrupt government was overturned.
The victors of Aker Castle wanted to annihilate their enemies, so they created a Sacred Alliance.
There were also many legends that had grown up about that particular battle.
For example, Ling PingAn had had a classmate in college who had gone to study in the Kingdom of France.
Whenever he talked about this bloody battle, he always got very worked up, saying things like “The English were despicable and actually planted an undead army within the castle!” and “If they hadn’t done that, how could the brave and fearless infantry of the king have suffered such a defeat?”
Ling PingAn just replied very simply, “That’s right, the great Kingdom of France would never surrender unless Paris fell first!”
The classmate didn’t know what to say after that.
The stories that his classmate recounted were some of the most widely known legends.
According to these legends, the opponent had been an army of evil spirits led by a terrifying demonic general.
This was how they’d managed to defend the castle for one year with very little support, causing the God of War of Qin to abandon the battle and finally lose miserably.
From the look of it, the game developers had probably designed this place with that legend in mind.
Ling PingAn thought about this as he walked farther ahead to touch that stone plaque.
Just like the last time, a prompt appeared in front of him: Dear Player, you have reached the core of the Nightmare: Aker Castle.
You can choose:
A: Apparently, Princess Mauradon lives in Aker Castle. She has plump, juicy legs as well as a bright, mesmerizing mouth. You can invite her to attend a grand banquet held for the sake of reproducing life.
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B: You are unaffected by anything worldly. Mercifulness is your virtue, and exterminating demons is your mission.
Ling PingAn didn’t need to think about this choice for more than a minute and chose B immediately.
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The moment he made his choice, all the candles in the castle were extinguished instantly.
Chapter 44: Lucky One
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“All you bold demons…”
“I can tell that none of you are human!”
“Almighty Dragon of Heaven!”
The muscular monk was roaring like an angry gorilla. He was acting like a tiger marauding among the sheep. He’d slapped a few dozen monsters to death right in front of Chu Weiwei.
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During the entire process, he’d been touched by almost no counterattacks.
The monsters had tried to attack and defend themselves, but nothing they did seemed to even damage a single hair on the monk’s head.
2
Chu Weiwei stood watching this spectacle in a daze.
After a very short while, all the monsters had just been turned into a pile of fine sand.
The wind blew up, and soon the entire village disappeared completely as if it had been nothing but a sandcastle.
Only the lamps along the road were still there, flickering away.
Chu Weiwei swallowed hard.
She felt such awe that she couldn’t help but take a step back. Her foot caught in a root from a tree that was behind her, and she tripped, falling into the trunk of the tree.
Then there was an extremely loud cracking sound as the large tree split into pieces like a pile of Legos that had been put together by a child.
Soon after that, the entire forest where Chu Weiwei was standing started to make these cracking sounds as it fell apart.
In just the blink of an eye, the forest, the village, and even the lamps along the street had disappeared completely as though they’d been fog blown away by the wind.
The true nature of this place was slowly revealed as well.
This was no village on the mountain at all.
This had clearly been a bloody open-air slaughterhouse.
There were several sharp metal hooks still attached to fallen walls and broken bones lying around that were void of blood or flesh.
In fact, broken bones could be seen lying in piles all over the ground.
Rotting organs had been dumped in drains that were devoid of water.
There was a rather old-looking stone plaque in front of the slaughterhouse.
Chu Weiwei was curious. She went up to the plaque and wiped away the moss that covered it.
Then she saw the words that had been engraved on the plaque.
Her eyes widened instantly.
“Nan’an Village?” she exclaimed. “This is Nan’an Village?”
It was true that the words Nan’an Village were engraved onto that stone plaque.
There was even an additional note on the bottom left-hand corner of the plaque: Xisong Kingdom, Guangling County, Republic Year 2740.
This stone plaque was from almost 100 years ago.
After looking at this, Chu Weiwei was no longer doubtful. This place was really Nan’an Village.
A Xisong village that had mysteriously vanished.
Countless people had tried to search for this place for the past 100 years, but to no avail.
From the looks of it now…
Chu Weiwei lifted her head to look at the sky in this Nightmare World.
It was a beautiful dark sky where the moon shone brightly and the stars sparkled like jewels.
But for some strange reason, she felt very cold all over.
That was because the appearance of Nan’an Village meant that this Realm of Nightmare was even more mysterious than she had imagined.
Also, this place showed that the game mixed fantasy with reality.
Or, at least, that Alucard definitely had had something to do with the disappearance of Nan’an Village, which had now appeared within this Nightmare World.
…
“This is Nan’an Village…?”
Without her realizing it, the tall, muscular monk had appeared next to Chu Weiwei.
Chu Weiwei lifted up her head to look at him.
She was considered to be quite tall.
But even though she stood at 5’7″, she looked like a child compared to this monk. It took her quite a lot of effort just to be able to see his face.
Strangely enough, also, even though this monk looked vicious and fierce, he seemed to be pretty friendly.
He’d even sent Chu Weiwei a Nightmare Invitation:
Legend of Nightmare player MonkFahai invites you to join his team.
When Chu Weiwei saw the prompt with the mark of a Nightmare, she clicked on OK.
After that, the next prompt came: You have joined a Nightmare Team. The Team Leader is MonkFahai.
Team Leader has changed the collection mode to: Pick freely. Team Leader will reallocate.
After that, the monk said, “Why are you still in a daze? Hurry up and help me to sweep this place up!”
His bamboo fan-sized hands pointed at the mess of broken bones that were lying around them in all directions.
Chu Weiwei suddenly realized that there were several black-and-silver boxes lying among the bones.
They resembled the boxes in a game that she used to play.
“Senior…,” she asked in a soft voice,”…are you talking to me?”
…
Ling PingAn looked at this female player who was standing in front of him with a quizzical look.
“Senior?”
“Is this some sort of culture unique to Legend of Nightmare?” He wondered to himself.
Every group had its own set of jargon.
Ling PingAn understood this and respected it too.
After all, he also used a lot of inside words in other games.
So with that in mind, he nodded. “Take it as that then!”
When the female player, PrettyWeiWei, heard these words, she immediately clasped her hands together and used a very old way of responding politely, “Your junior accepts these instructions!”
“This monk will have to thank the dear donor for her services then!” Ling PingAn got into the role and used a very monk-like response as well.
When it came to making witty jokes, nobody could beat an online novel writer.
After all, if an online novelist couldn’t keep up with the times or understand the latest trends, he’d get thrown out.
…
Chu Weiwei immediately got to work.
This was an instruction from her senior.
So she didn’t delay for a single moment and immediately immersed herself in the work of opening these boxes.
She walked over and squatted down to open one of the boxes on the ground.
The box opened with a cracking sound.
It revealed what it contained.
It was a ginseng that was bright red in color.
It was as long as both of her hands together.
The ginseng gave off a mesmerizing scent as soon as she took it out of the box.
Chu Weiwei curiously checked to see if there was any information on this item and a prompt from the Realm of Nightmare popped up: You have opened a Nightmare silver-grade loot box.
You have obtained one 100-Year-Old Ghost Ginseng.
100-Year-Old Ghost Ginseng. Place of origin: Any Nightmare World with ghosts and spirits. Quality: High Silver-Grade. Weight: 3.5 ounces. You may consume it as it is or you can use it to make medicine.
Consumption: Instantly regain 100 hit points and 100 mana points. After that, you will regain 10 hit points and mana points every second for 15 seconds and gain 1 point of Strength or 1 point of Vigor (limited to only the first consumption).
You may also sell it to the Realm of Nightmare and gain 1,000 Nightmare Points.
Chu Weiwei started swallowing as she looked at the description of this Ghost Ginseng.
That was because her total hit points were only at 110 points.
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In other words, this Ghost Ginseng could save her life!
More important, she had asked the Mark of Nightmare about whether she could take anything from the Nightmare World out of the world when she left.
She had received an affirmative response. As long as you have enough points to exchange, you can take any loot from the Nightmare World back to the real world.
If she wanted to take this Ghost Ginseng back to the real world, she would need to pay 1,500 Nightmare Points.
Before entering this Nightmare World, the Realm of Nightmare had given her a warning. The Realm has digitized your body, so any damage to your brain or heart in the course of your adventures within the Nightmare World will not immediately cause you to die and will only subtract from your hit points. Once your hit points total is zero, however, you will die.
In other words, if she could take this Ghost Ginseng back to the real world…
This would instantly become a magical medicine that could revive the dead.
The rich folks of the Federal Empire would definitely give her everything they had in exchange for this.
While Chu Weiwei was still in a daze, she heard the monk exclaim in surprise behind her, “You lucky one! You’re seriously too lucky!”
“I’ve opened at least seven or eight boxes, and it was all trash. All of it together would only sell for about 1,000 points!”
“But this one box of yours is equivalent to all my boxes!”
“Hurry up and keep working!” The monk urged her on.